Eclipse 4diac Weekly #75

Update on what development happened across the Eclipse 4diac project in the week from February 20 to February 27, 2026.

This week’s updates focus on major internal robustness improvements, enhanced refactoring support, and continued modernization of the 4diac IDE UI. 4diac FORTE advances OPC UA alarm handling and communication extensibility, while documentation improves developer onboarding.

Enhancements and Fixes in 4diac IDE

• Type System & Error Type Handling

  • Reworked error type handling and inheritance hierarchy
  • Added dedicated error library elements when types cannot be loaded
  • Filtered error types in type library and removed obsolete entries
  • Improved validation with early detection of type cast errors
  • Fixed interface handling for error types
  • Added notifications for type name and comment changes
  • Reload type entries correctly during dependency updates
  • Created type entries for specific type classes

• Project References & Build Handling

  • Improved referenced project handling and manifest integration
  • Trigger full builds when project references change
  • Enhanced library manager handling of referenced projects
  • Cleaned up helper methods and documentation

• Refactoring & Model Editing

  • Added support for folder move refactoring with automatic reference updates
  • Improved duplicate name validation (case-insensitive)
  • Cleared editor mappings correctly when systems are reset
  • Added helper methods and improved handling of member access parameters
  • Split model search lines for structured text code

• ECC Editor Improvements

  • Migrated ECC state creation to position-based commands
  • Removed screen coordinate dependencies from CreateECStateCommand
  • Updated creation tools and layout policies accordingly
  • Fixed modulo freeform figure handling

• Adapters & Interface Improvements

  • Added parameter support for AdapterDeclaration import/export
  • Fixed wrong device pin names
  • Correctly updated untyped SubApp interfaces when hiding pins
  • Improved automatic event connection handling considering event types

• UI & Visual Modernization

  • Reworked comment figure aligned with new design language
  • Improved NatTable dark mode visuals and tree arrows
  • Migrated to Draw2d FigureUtilities lighter/darker implementation
  • Replaced legacy shadow borders with modern Draw2d shadows
  • Fixed layouts in device and resource property sheets
  • Removed obsolete interface sections and unused adapters

• Localization & Internationalization

  • Externalized user-facing strings in:
    • application plugin
    • structured text editors and core UI plugins
    • global constants editor

• Library & Type Entry Robustness

  • Checked file existence before loading type entries
  • Removed obsolete null checks
  • Improved dependency update handling
  • Added cleanup and validation logic for library elements

• Deployment & Runtime Integration

  • Upgraded FBRT launcher and updated FBDK2 device profile
  • Enforced UI-thread execution for selectViewObject

• Testing & CI

  • Added unit tests and test project for MapToCommand
  • Updated GitHub test result publishing action

• Editor Stability Fixes

  • Fixed bulk editor discard/dirty handling
  • Fixed device/resource property sheet layout issues

Enhancements and Fixes in 4diac FORTE

• OPC UA Alarm & SIFB Improvements

  • Refactored alarm state fetching
  • Reworked OPC UA alarm object creation for SIFB usage
  • Refactored alarm type creation for improved reuse

• Communication FB Extensibility

  • Allowed overriding of getNumSD() and getNumRD() in BaseCommFB subclasses

Enhancements and Fixes in 4diac Documentation

• Developer Experience
  • Enhanced development mode setup instructions for 4diac IDE
  • Added guidance for handling hidden files and required directory setup

Many thanks to all contributors for their work and their feedback!

Cheers,
The Eclipse 4diac Team